Kolchak: The Night Stalker is an American television series that aired on ABC during the 1974–1975 season. It starred Darren McGavin as Chicago newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak, who investigated mysterious crimes which the local police normally chose not to follow up on. The cases usually entailed supernatural or science-fiction elements.

Created by Michael Palin and Terry Jones following the end of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Ripping Yarns was a British television series featuring tales of adventure, mystery, suspense and drama – a BBC production that ran for two seasons. Each episode had a different setting and characters, all focused on a different aspect of British culture and parodying pre-World War II literature aimed at schoolboys.

Many of the most colorful and fondly remembered children’s television series of the 1970s were Sid and Marty Krofft creations. Their innovative, live-action fantasy productions were enjoyed by countless pajamaed kids on countless Saturday mornings.

After graduating from university, Canadian Doug Henning was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant for the purpose of studying magic. He went on to develop the magic-based stage show “Spellbound”, which ran successfully in Toronto before transitioning to Broadway as “The Magic Show”. Debuting in 1974, the show ran for four and a half years, and earned Henning a Tony Award nomination.

In 1972, ABC Television hired song publisher Don Kirshner as an executive producer and consultant for their new “In Concert” music series which ran every other week in The Dick Cavett Show slot. The show, featuring acts like Alice Cooper, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and The Steve Miller Band, was highly successful, even occasionally topping NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The following year, Kirshner left “In Concert” to launch his own syndicated weekly rock program, “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.” On September 27, 1973, “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” premiered featuring The Rolling Stones first American television performance in over four years.

Duel is a 1971 television (and later full-length theatrical) thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Richard Matheson, based on Matheson’s short story of the same name. It stars Dennis Weaver as a terrified motorist stalked on a remote and lonely road by the mostly unseen driver of a mysterious tanker truck.

Now mostly forgotten, comedian Flip Wilson was a huge television star who Time magazine labelled “TV’s first black superstar”. During the early seventies, the hour-long Flip Wilson Show aired on NBC to huge audiences. During its first two seasons, it was the second most watched show in the US.